Monday May 12, 2014

Travel Day

Last night we had several hard rain storms with high winds, and this morning it was overcast with light rain . We headed out around 9:30 traveling west on US 56 to the city of Council Grove, where we went to visit the “Kaw Mission State Historic Site”, unfortunately it was closed today. At this point it started to rain very hard and moving on was not disappointing. 
From here we traveled south on State Rt. 177, “Flint Hills National Scenic Byway” to the “Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve”, it was cold and windy, but we enjoyed the visit,
  even-though the farm house and barn were closed for renovation. In this part of
Kansas the soil is very rocky, making farming difficult so it is predominantly cattle ranching. The National Preserve was previously a large cattle ranch that is now the largest area of “tallgrass” grass land in the country. From here we traveled west on State Rd. 150 and US 56 to Canton and the “Prairie Trail Scenic Byway”, this was a ride over rolling country side through cattle ranches and towards the end there were a few farms. 
This byway wound through the countryside over back roads, Rt. 4 and Rt.
141; we then headed west on Rt . 140 to Ellsworth, north on Rt. 14 to I-70, then
west to exit 184 and the town of Russell.  
We are staying at the “Triple J Campground”, a small campground without
any amenities, but for one night it will be fine. For most of the day it was overcast with some
rain; and very windy all day making driving at times difficult and definitely adversely affecting the daily mileage. It turned very cold later in the afternoon and with the wind it made setup
at the campground a little uncomfortable.

Note:   There seems to be more Cattle than people in Kansas. Kansas land is more rolling hills than flat land like we expected.